Port Forever,
Location Unknown
January - June 2023
Landscape of discomfort
The project is about the disappearance of the port of Rotterdam from the city image and the replacement of landscapes. A place we take for granted.
My fascination arose from my family ties to the port. My great-grandfather and my grandfather both worked in the port, as marine engine engineers. They acted as cogs in a large wheel and thereby contributed to the growth of the port.
The Rotterdam port is a symbol of expansion, expropriation and exploitation. The visual language of the port anno 2023 gives me a feeling of desolation, isolation and anonymity; it is a landscape of discomfort. I feel this discomfort also about its history: the depletion of the earth, the exploitation caused by colonialism and imperialism, the monomania of accumulating wealth and the focus only on economic growth. This is not a place for me but a place for robots, steel and big vessels. The only warm familiar sensations I experienced are the screeching of seagulls, the salty wind in my hair and the continuous flowing river.
I present the story of the port in a Triptych. My Triptych consists of three parts: One of my field trips through the port, past the cranes, container terminals and oil refineries. An endless landscape dominated by machines and efficient algorithms that is disappearing in my rearview mirror, One of a map; map of the landscapes, an endlessly winding snake that makes its way through the land, in search of the sea and leaves a landscape full of scars and The final one of the shaping and using the landscape, from the container ships to my family story.
The port is a symbol of change but is disappearing from our view. The port is forever but the location is unknown.
Family history
On 16 Augustus 1919 my great grandparents with their daughter ‘Meta Hansje’ moved to Nederlands-Indië (Indonesia), they left from Rotterdam Loydkade to Surabaya. ‘Jetse’ my great-grandfather was an enterprising man and started working on Java as mechanical engineer as partner of a machine factory. He was in Java to promote and find future customers for agricultural vehicles from Deutz machine factory.
On 26 May 1921 my grandfather ‘Hans’ was born in Surabaya. In 1924 the family left Indonesia because my great grandmother ‘Annie’ couldn’t live in the tropical climate according to my aunt, she was also homesick.
My great grandfather started a working for Deutz in Amsterdam, but in 1931 he changed to the branch marine engines in the port of Rotterdam, while living in Hilversum. Later he also switched to inland shipping and trawlers. Between ‘52 and ‘53, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother moved to Kralingen in Rotterdam. Where Jetse died on 30 December 1957 and where Annie died on 9 October 1971.
Hans and my grandmother ‘Atie’ lived with their young family along the Maas at the Sluisjesdijk between 1949 and 1954. My grandparents lived in a temporary wooden cabin on the grounds of the Deutz factory because of a housing shortage in Rotterdam after the Second world war and the growing employment in the port. My grandmother enjoyed living remotely from the city, she watched ships sail up and down, my aunt (Meike) was named after one of the ships that passed by.
Characteristic of my family is their close relationship with living along water and transport by ship; this goes back generations to Friesland where the family originally came from. They worked in shipyards, as fishermen and on transport ships. Sailing on sea, lakes and rivers formed an intergenerational fascination that became a common thread in family history.
Fieldtrip_01
The Maastunnel and to the Heijplaat
From central station I started cycling to the Maastunnel through the centre past the Museumpark and the Euromast, in the distance the Maas loomed up. When I passed through the tunnel, I left the city behind, physically and mentally. And the view became wider and more horizontal. I went to the Sluisjesdijk past the place where my grandparents lived (I didn’t know it then) there is now a large grey warehouse with still an factory. The area used to be covered with cylinders full of oil and now with boxes made of metal.
I made a tour around the Waalhaven, the largest port basin in the world. The place felt deserted but not uncomfortable. Along the vessels of Boskalis with names that fit well with it: Giant 2 and Giant 3. The first container ships emerged. I reached the garden village of Heijplaat with a collapsed church and the cozy front gardens with giant cranes in the background. My final destination was the Quarantine Area and place where sailors with infectious diseases had to be in quarantine later it was also a refugee camp for Jews from Eastern Europe during the second world war. Now it is a place where a few artists are located.
Fieldtrip_02
Shell-Pernis to Rozenburg (and back)
From Schiedam station I started cycling through a few Vinex districts I soon arrived at the Beneluxtunnel, the smoke from the Shell towers at Pernis felt like the eye of Sauron. The tunnel led me under the Maas to a place that has a lot of comparison with Mordor. I stood by a wall of containers in all the colours of the rainbow with the buzzing sound of A4 in the background. I continued my way to the area of Shell, a three-lane train track ran parallel to the bike path. A web of cables connects the horizon and the sky. I turned right towards the refinery and powerplant. It was a tube paradise you could constantly hear the tubes creaking and sucking. The bike path is hardly used, the blades of grass bravely pierced through it. Smoke came from every nook, it’s a place for steel. You are in the port but there are no ships to be seen.
Due to an error of judgement and mental bewilderment, I thought it was useful to cycle to Rozenburg to take the ferry to Maassluis, but when I arrived it turned out the ferry did not go, and I had to go back. On the way back I have never felt so much mental pain, warehouse after warehouse, container after container, factory after factory, the port did not seem to stop. Miles of cycling along the Botlek.
Fieldtrip_03
A boat trip
From Delft the journey started through tunnels and a few bridges, I finally arrived at the edges of the Maasvlakte. Screeching seagulls were the welcome committee, the seagulls are descendants of the inhabitants of nature park de Beer. The boat trip started at Futureland at the Prinses Magriethaven, this is the pr machine of the port.
The boat trip sailed past the warehouses where the largest windmills are made for offshore parks and past the largest lighthouse, but it was ironically out of use. The Yangtze Canal was the most impressive, a super wide vein that connects the two Maasvlaktes. In the middle of the canal was the largest container ship in the world that was unloaded with the largest cranes in the world. It’s a wall that blocks every view. The cranes play a dance with the containers, a theatre play it is. “The largest” is an important word of the port’s vocabulary. It’s a world full of material and the rhythm of capital which doesn’t feel like anything real.
Fieldtrip_04
Iron ore and coal
At 7:38 I arrived at the ore transhipment where I was to be invited for a tour. The port is covered with morning light, the long shadows flatten the landscape. For me the day had started but, in the port, the previous day had not yet ended. On the ore transhipment they convey coal and iron ore for the steel industry. We drove a pickup truck through the mud and dust past pitch-black hills and intricate machinery. One of the employees saw the place as a playground for adults. Everything was moved with conveyor belts; the assignment was to move ore and coal from boat to boat or train. Everything had to arrive in the Ruhr area according to timetables.
I got on a coal boat from Canada, the coal was as black as the sky, it emptied with the help of large claws. The belly of the boat is 20 meters deep, the sound of the port is echoed in the iron walls of the ship. The visit feels like something unique, but every day ships arrive from all over the world that must be emptied.
Fieldtrip_05
Over the dike and along the beach
I was on my way to Snackbar Balkon van Europa which is at the end of the Maasvlakteweg. With the trip I drove through landscapes full of windmills, the view is endless. Halfway down the road I stopped at a beach exit to see the North Sea. There was no one on the beach. Occasionally a car drove by that was maintaining a windmill. The wind was my only companion. Back in the car it felt to me that the landscape had not changed, for half an hour I only saw windmills, container terminals and trucks that disappeared in the rearview mirror. When I arrived at the Snack Bar It felled, I was at the end of the world and with Europe under my feet.
During the fieldtrips: I did harvest a lot of data such as stories, film and photo material. I decided to process all this material in a triptych about the symbolism of the port of Rotterdam.